"We are convinced it is traced back to an age-old gang war in South Los Angeles," Whitmore told the Times shortly after the riots occurred. "It is a small core group of people, and most of the inmates don't want to fight."

The Twin Towers Jail is a 1.5-million-square-foot facility on 10 acres of land. It houses roughly 4,500 inmates, according to Whitmore. It is one of eight detention centers the sheriff's department runs in the county. There are 18,000 prisoners county-wide.

The L.A. county jail system is the largest correctional system in the nation and is known for being constantly overpopulated, Reuters reported.